


we were better off when i was on your side (and i was holding on)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, mention of Coulson/Rosalind, ugh these two destroy me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 14:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5208644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't, she thinks, don't look at me like that and say yes to Rosalind, Phil, but he does. Of course he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were better off when i was on your side (and i was holding on)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



Daisy's not  _stupid_. She's seen where this was going from the beginning, read it right from Coulson's face when she'd interrupted Price tying his tie. It was a moment that seemed more intimate for her interruption, the way Coulson glanced up at her, stepped away, drew breath.

He looks at her again when she gives May her thoughts, turns his head to the side and considers her for one long glance, and his eyes are too soft, too tender.  _Don't_ , she thinks,  _don't look at me like that and say yes to Rosalind, Phil_ , but he does. Of course he does.

It's not even that she can fault him for  _wanting_. God knows, she's thought more than she should about her kiss with Lincoln, replayed it in her head until she's not sure she can separate the wanting from who it is that she wants. But  _Price_. It's not just that Rosalind talked over her, talked down to her. ( _Ignorant_ , Rosalind says, and Daisy prickles with irritation.) She's lived her whole life being condescended to by white women with education and prestige and power. Once she'd have fought it, but Daisy's learning to let things flow through her, and she'd ignore it all if it weren't for the way she's seen Rosalind  _look_.

Price looks at Daisy like she's not quite human, and at Coulson like he's her next target, and Daisy can't tell which makes her angrier, but when Coulson says,  _yes_ , quiet but not quiet enough, the anger doesn't flow through her at all. It just burns, and when she watches him walk off the Quinjet without a backward glance, she thinks, oh, she could take down the whole plane. She could take down the whole plane like  _that._

She wants to channel it into something, into someone, to slam them into walls and burn herself out with touch and connection and wanting. But: the way Lincoln looks at her, he needs too much, and she's not the kind of person who could take comfort in someone for the wrong reasons, not when he thinks it's more. She sidesteps his gaze, mutters something about being tired, goes to her room alone and tries not to think about wanting. She finds herself thinking about leaving, instead.

 

 

Coulson doesn't acknowledge it the next day, and Daisy thinks,  _fine_. But there's a distance between them, and she wonders if he feels it. 

"Rosalind was very impressed by you," he says again, and Daisy presses her lips together, walks out of his office without a word.  _Impressed_ feels too much like Price is evaluating her as a weapon. She's not sure that's not the case. She hears Coulson's phone ring as she's leaving, and his tone when he answers is softer than it should be.  _Phil_ , she thinks furiously,  _you're going to get your heart stepped on, and this isn't objective distance, this is you being compromised._

She thought she'd stemmed her anger, but it's just banked within her, and this is a terrible moment to realize she's in love with him. She pushes it down, tries not to think about it. It's just another kind of wanting, after all, and she thinks, this love has been burning for a long time.

Leaving seems like a better option than it ever has. Daisy wants to cut and run, to go somewhere nobody knows her, nobody needsher, nobody looks at her the way Phil Coulson insists on doing. She suddenly understands Lincoln.  _We could just go_ , she thinks, leave SHIELD behind, leave the ATCU in rubble, find a place far away from here. And then she sees Joey, his face lit up with the knowledge that he's the first member of her team, and all her momentum is gone, because Daisy can't go anywhere. She's responsible for all this. She's responsible to them all, and this isn't a weight she can shrug off.

 

 

Daisy misses Andrew, misses him more than she could have ever known, and the missing stings. It's just another heaviness to bear, the knowledge that Andrew's caught up in this, in an Inhuman epidemic and the ATCU's stasis cube and all this hurt, because of her and Jiaying.  _Just like your mother_ , Cal says in her memory, and she knows she's not the same, she knows she didn't send the Terrigen into the water deliberately the way Jiaying set a trap, but it feels the same. It feels like guilt. May asked  _her_ for advice, as if she was an authority, as if she was someone whose opinion is welcome and wanted and important, and Daisy's never felt so valued and so guilty at the same time. 

She thinks about it too much, and it just adds to the anger in her. She thinks, ruefully, that if Andrew was still around, maybe she'd actually talk some of this out. She doesn't know how to unfold.

She wants to run; she has to stay. She bites it back.

 

 

She works out, late at night, until everything hurts and it feels a little less like weight, and walking back to her room, she sees Coulson arrive back on base. His collar is askew, and he's smiling, soft, in a way that makes her abruptly, blazingly angry, desperate with it.

"Professional distance,  _Phil_?" she says, and it hurts, it  _hurts_. She feels suddenly hollow with betrayal. All these feelings, she thinks, they've been waiting to crest over her like a wave, and here, now, in this hallway, she can hold nothing back.

"Daisy," Coulson says, startled but even, and the way he barely blinks, she doesn't know how he's doing this with her.

"I can't believe you would," she tells him. "With  _her._ I can't believe you'd even consider it. After all your talk about  _maintaining distance._ "

"Agent Johnson," Coulson says, quiet, but there's a flare of defensiveness in his face. "You're pushing it." She is, she's pushing too hard, but they've been  _not talking_ for weeks, and Daisy has to say it. She has to get this out.

"She doesn't even think I'm  _human_ ," Daisy spits at him. "She's stripping my people of their rights, and you're letting her do it. She thinks we're a cancer to be cured."

"You're not-" Coulson says, reaches out, tries to touch her shoulder, and Daisy twists back out of reach.

"I should leave," she says, "I should- I want to walk away, Coulson, I can't, I can't-" Her voice cracks, and she steps back further, takes a deep breath, ignores the tears on her cheeks. She just needs to walk away.

"Are you?" Coulson asks, sounding like her words were a blow, and Daisy never wanted to see this expression on his face either. "Leaving SHIELD? Is that what you want to do?" Daisy pauses, for a long moment. Thinks of May and her faith in Daisy's opinion, of Joey and her tiny fledgling team. Of all the other Inhumans out there, the people she's created, the people who need her help. They're  _her people._

"I couldn't run even if I wanted to," she whispers, wipes her face and leans back against the wall, doesn't look at Coulson.

"We need you," he agrees, relieved. "I need you," and that makes her look up, sharp and sad and desperate all over again.

"Don't," she breathes, "don't, Phil, don't look at me like you do, don't say that to me and say yes to her," and she sees the moment his expression slips.

"I just wanted connection," he says, "I just wanted- it's simple, okay, it's not a  _thing_ ," and she knows he's trying to excuse himself, but she  _understands_ , suddenly.

"You just  _wanted_ ," she says softly. "You thought you couldn't get it anywhere else."

"I can't," Coulson agrees, looks down at his hand. Daisy steps closer, steps into his space, and he looks up at her, wide-eyed with surprise.

"God," she says, and she's still angry, she's still burning with the weight of guilt over months and Coulson not realizing what working with Price is doing to her and Coulson ignoring all of that to find his own stupid human connection. But she also saw him slip, the subtle change in his face, the twitch of his jaw that's as good as a confession. "God," she says again, grabs him by the collar, "Phil, you're so stupid, you're so  _stupid_." He's such an idiot, she thinks, pulls him against her and kisses his stupid face, and the kiss tastes like bitter salt tears. It's terrible. It's perfect. She pushes into him harder, bites his lower lip to try and get a response, and it punches a noise out of him, something tiny and desperate and  _needing_ , and okay, Daisy thinks she's a little stupid too, because they've both wanted, they've both wanted for so long, and they approached this all wrong.

She breaks away to take a breath, ragged and uneven, and she's still crying, she's crying harder, and when Phil cups her face in his hand, leans in again, whispers her name in quiet, shocked wonder, she hears herself sob. Her breath hitches, and she kisses him again, weeping and laughing in equal measures. It feels like she's crying out everything that's banked up, all the anger and grief and despair, and it might never stop but with Coulson's palm tender on her cheek, his lips against hers, it feels, finally, like a weight she can bear. It feels like holding on.

 


End file.
